The Texan Star: The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty

Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
603K words
Chapters
61

Tags

English Originals Historical Fiction Military StrategyAdventureHeroismPatriotismComing of AgeStruggle for LibertyWestern Frontier

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Texan Star: The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty by Joseph A. AltshelerAuthor: Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 18, 2005

Editor's review

The Texan Star is a historical adventure novel by Joseph A. Altsheler set against the Texas Revolution, in the tradition of his historical narratives for young readers. The story centers on the struggle for liberty, moving at a brisk pace and driven by action and choice rather than elaborate psychological portraiture. The author's evocation of the era and the frontier setting is vivid, letting readers feel the pulse of nineteenth-century American Western history as they follow the protagonist through conflict and trial. As a public-domain ebook, the text is complete and easy to obtain, making it a good entry-level historical novel for reading in English and a light introduction for anyone curious about the Texas independence movement. Readers should not expect deep historical analysis; it works best as a coming-of-age adventure set against a historical backdrop. Reading alongside a map or a brief historical overview will make the characters' situation easier to follow.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Look up a brief timeline of the Texas Revolution before starting; the characters' motives will be easier to follow.
  2. Read chapter by chapter and, after each, summarize the conflict and choices in your own words to reinforce your English comprehension.
  3. Note place names and historical figures as you go and review them after finishing to build a background framework.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English learners? It suits learners with intermediate English reading skills. The narrative is driven by plot and the sentence structure is not overly complex, though it includes historical place names and period language. Reading with a dictionary and background material on the Texas Revolution will help you build vocabulary while understanding the historical context.
Do I need to know about the Texas Revolution before reading? It is not required, but some basic background will noticeably improve the experience. Knowing that this struggle for liberty took place roughly in the first half of the nineteenth century helps you understand the characters' positions and the sources of conflict. A brief historical overview before the novel will keep you from losing your bearings.
Is this a history book or a novel? It is a novel set against historical events, not a strict history. The author uses the framework of the Texas Revolution for an adventure narrative, focusing on the characters' experiences and narrative tension rather than on documentary research. Read it as a story set in a historical period, and check historical details against scholarly works.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919 Author

Joseph A. Altsheler (1862–1919) was an American author known for historical adventure novels, with 33 of his works held in this collection. Because public information is limited, details of his life are difficult to set out, yet his works show that he drew on American history, especially the frontier and the Civil War era. Representative titles include The Riflemen of the Ohio, The Guns of Bull Run, The Forest Runners, The Hunters of the Hills, The Rulers of the Lakes and The Shades of the Wilderness, most set in early Kentucky, the Great Lakes region or the Civil War. His novels are tightly plotted, stress historical atmosphere and youthful adventure, and often appear in series; they had a certain influence on early twentieth-century American historical reading for young people.